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Tuesday, February 8, 2011

School Attendance and Thanks

My son had a doctor's appointment yesterday in another city in VERY interesting weather.

The first item on the Wednesday advocate agenda is to fax the excuse note to the school. Yes, I'm still faxing. I always keep the original note and send a faxed copy. This can work either way- send the orginal, keep a copy- dasmacht nichts.After checking the grades online, I've decided to email a thank you note to my son's teachers. My son had a serious wrist break this summer, that resulted in few months of medical treatment. His doctor released him from his post surgical monitoring yesterday!

The doctor's office sits exactly TWO hours away from my son's school and THREE on a Texas snowy day. Weekly check-ups meant making sure this high school freshman Manchild made daily attendance, then whisping him away to an entirely different town and lots of follow up (for him) communication with teachers.

He did a great job keeping up with everything!

It's quite frustrating to educators to finish grading the entire stack of essays and realize you're really not finished- the non present students still have to be graded.

When is ADA? To find out the attendance reporting time... call the school. Many of you know this and some schools openly share that the ADA time is when the school reports their daily attendance.

In grade school- push the EASY button. If the time is 10:00 AM, make sure your child is present and accounted for until that hour. This means cough drops until ten and schedule appointments after that specified time. Your child is still present for the day!

This is vital information for parents of competitive perfect attendance fifth grade medal receiver pumpkins. Or if you have a concern that needs timely attention.

I refused to check him out before the reporting period. Even the hospital scheduling staff knew the ADA.

We respect the school enough to not mess up their attendance rating or their funding.

It's not as easy post grade school- your child may be reported present for ADA, but if they are missing the same class over and over, they may not receive credit for that class.

What is the present percentage for credit? Determine how many days your pumpkin can miss from each class whether they are counted during ADA or not. If there are ninety days in a semester. Your student might need to be in attendance for 90% of those days. That means they can miss a class about nine times in a semester and still receive credit. The percentage varies from state to state and sometimes school to school. Check the school's handbook or ask to be sure. What types of absences are excused at your child's school? Usually, medical, bereavement, and legal are a given, but there are others. Remember to turn in documentation for these kinds of absences.

Who gets the note? Make sure the note gets into the right hands. Schools generally have a person on attendance detail. Look for the person in the office who knows most all the student's names!

How many days are alotted to make up missed school work for an excused absence / unexcused absence? The school's handbook is a great resource for this one as well. If it's online- bookmark it.

Oh, and here's the note to the teachers. BTW, it was well received:

To all,

I want to take a moment to thank you for the additional understanding and patience that you have given to my son. His Lubbock doctor released him yesterday to use his personal discretion and continue therapy.